VA deaths focus attention on hiring
Veterans Affairs officials, on the defensive over several deaths connected to one former VA doctor, told a Senate panel Tuesday that three other surgeons at the Illinois hospital where he worked were recently placed on leave.
The officials, who testified in Washington before the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, did not offer specifics about the three surgeons, but Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the news “is unfortunately a developing pattern of problems of the surgical staff” at the VA in Marion, Ill.
Scrutiny in Marion has mushroomed since August, when Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez resigned three days after a 50-year-old Air Force veteran from Kentucky bled to death after gallbladder surgery the surgeon performed.
Soon after, the hospital suspended inpatient operations because of a spike in post-surgical deaths and reassigned or placed on leave four officials, including the chief of surgery.
The VA says 10 patients died under the care of Veizaga-Mendez, whose Illinois license was indefinitely suspended last month by regulators. Before the VA hired him, he had made payouts in two Massachusetts malpractice suits and was under investigation there on suspicion of botching seven cases, two of which ended in deaths.
Durbin has asked federal prosecutors to investigate the Marion VA, saying employees have made “deeply disturbing” claims of flawed patient care, shoddy oversight and possibly criminal acts, including document-shredding since Veizaga-Mendez’s departure.
Durbin pledged Tuesday to push federal legislation to overhaul hiring practices at VA hospitals nationwide.
Confronted publicly Tuesday for the first time about the Marion matter, VA administrators deflected the panel’s prodding for many specifics about Veizaga-Mendez, citing a VA inspector general’s investigation of his hiring at the Marion VA in January 2006 and the 20 months he worked there.
VA officials insisted the department followed a thorough credentialing process in vetting Veizaga-Mendez. The VA generally verifies information supplied by prospective doctors at its 150 or so U.S. medical centers through national practitioner databanks and checks for disciplinary alerts by the Federation of State Medical Boards, Gerald Cross, the VA’s chief deputy undersecretary for health, told the panel. The VA also checks doctors’ references.
Cross suggested there was little reason not to hire Veizaga-Mendez, given his glowing letters of recommendation, his unrestricted licenses and three decades of experience.
Durbin said he plans to propose legislation aimed at attracting “good doctors and will assure a level of scrutiny, accountability and review throughout the VA medical system.”